Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1997
It was her final year that Barbara Bowser would lead the Bureau into the Memorial Day weekend festival. The programming was phenomenal and a fitting tribute as her swan song and the passing of the torch. Taking place in Woodruff Park with the Brown Bag Concert Series as well as in Piedmont Park.
The performance lineup was Bill Anschell, Bill Braynon’s Positive Energy Big Band, Bobby Hutcherson, Dave Bass Ensemble, Gloria Lynne, Jeff Crompton Quartet, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, Jimmy Jackson All Star Band, Joe Campisi, Johnnie Eason, Kamal Abjul Alim, Life Force, Max Roach. Melody Cole Jazz Combo Quar-Tech, Mike Kelly, Naked Jazz, Ojeda Penn, Pharaoh Sanders, Philip Smith and the Jazz Consortium, Rick Bell Quintet, Rita Graham Duo, Swing Association, The Thad Wilson Quintet, Tommy Macon and the Gentlemen of Jazz and the World Saxophone Quartet.
The sponsors of the festival were The Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company, The Atlanta Renaissance Hotel Downtown, Creative Loafing, JazzTimes Magazine, WCLK 91.9 FM, WRFG 89.3 FM, WJFZ and MediaOne.
#preserving genius
More Posts: festival,forty,free,history,jazz,music,tradition,years
Review: Sweet Lu Olutosin ~ Meet Me At The Crossroads
Meet Me At The Crossroads immediately conjured up the myth of Robert Johnson, who stood at that famed intersection awaiting the sale of his soul to the devil. However, experience has taught me not to merely accept the obvious and with Lutalo Olutosin this is far from that legendary tale. Upon listening, the avid jazz devotee will quickly recognize the appropriateness of the title. What is gifted here is more of a convergence than a meeting. This is not a random gathering of songs but a carefully considered compendium. If there is any convention connected to this body of work, it is that this project has touched the soul of wisdom and versatility.
History meets style that goes well beyond this vocalist’s sense of fashion, though he continually pays homage to a time when musicians dressed to kill. The style of which I speak is his choice of compositions and the myriad of genres he presents as he travels through music’s evolution during the last century.
Affectionately known by his stage moniker Sweet Lu, he dives right in with the pacesetter Still Swingin’ that says it all for the tempo but leaves something to be desired in the story as he recognizes the past and reiterates that it ain’t over yet. He immediately switches gears and drops down to an outpouring of love that would melt any heart with a soulful rendition a la Eddie Levert on Love You More Than You Ever Know. I was immediately taken with a Roy Ayers like arrangement of How They Do That telling our stories of great determination and triumph over adversity.
Walking the wooden planks laid end to end across the backwater at the edge of the swamp, Lu’s vocal version of Intimacy of the Blues takes us to a juke joint envisioned in an atmosphere of an Ernie Barnes painting or Harpo’s Place as he belts out Sister Sadie’s Blues and how she turns a head and a heart. It is evident Sadie has been around a few joints in her life and one can imagine the crowd bumping and grinding through a hot and sticky night and singing and hand-clapping to a fervor pitch in church. Skin Game eradicates the lines of color and evens the playing field for humanity’s acceptance of each other. One unlucky traveler is set on the straight and narrow because Granny said it and nobody’s word is more trusting than hers.
Dancea Swing A Nova moves easily through a dream world of a dancer who woos a young man and teaches him about life with a bossa rhythm. Lu bravely embraces the classic Lou Rawl’s tune You’ll Never Find and intuitively arranges it to make it his own, adding a little more jazz to this rhythm and blues mix. Tunji Baby is a mid-tempo groove that hurts so bad with the pain of desire but everything about her is tantalizingly sexy and exquisitely distressful but he refuses to give it up. Where I come from we call that love and happy to be in it.
If one is responsible for his craft then he must delve into the classics and for this outing Sweet Lu respectfully delves into the catalogue of tenor great Joe Henderson and retrieves Recorda Me, pens lyrics, sings and scats his way across the charts of Don’t Forget To Remember. This is just one of the six songs he composed and or penned lyrics for on this project, adding the talents of Kevin Mahogany, Al Kooper, Antonio Ciacca, along with the venerable Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. And for those listeners who enjoy singing, he reprises two sing along tracks of Skin Game and How They Do That.
Let us not be bereft of our responsibility to acknowledge his powerhouse assemblage of musicians that reflects Atlanta’s finest with pianist Tyrone Jackson and Marty Kearns, trumpeter Lester Walker, saxophonist Mace Hibbard, bassist Kevin Smith, drummer Henry Conerway III, and legendary jazz pianist Donald Brown. Adding a little spice to the mix is vocalist Crystal Mone’t who we hear in all her splendor on How They Do That, Skin Game and You’ll Never Find. Not limiting his musicians to simply add their instrumental thoughts to the musical conversation, he collaborated with Tyrone, Antonio, Donald and also enlists the talents of Dwight Andrews to bring fresh arrangements to those borrowed songs and his original compositions.
To call Sweet Lu a griot is an understatement. He is a wise sage imparting age old lessons by deftly infusing our cultural history and family values utilizing a tapestry of blues, gospel and jazz that are pure entertainment from beginning to end. The messages are all too familiar but like that loving elder we all grew up with, he delivers them in different ways for a new generation. There is more here that meets the ear and the eye, so take a listen and your perspective on life may be altered.
carl anthony | notorious jazz | march 5, 2017
Give A Gift Of Jazz ~ Share
#preserving genius
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dave Green was born on March 5, 1942 in Edgware, London, England. His first public performances were with his childhood friend Charlie Watts in the late 1950s while in their teens. He went on to perform with Humphrey Lyttelton from 1963 to 1983, while also playing with the Don Rendell–Ian Carr band in the early 1960s, and went on to play with Stan Tracey.
After his departure from Lyttelton in the early Eighties, he led his own group, Fingers, featuring Lol Coxhill, Bruce Turner and Michael Garrick. He regularly backed visiting musicians from the United States at Ronnie Scott’s, including Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk and Sonny Rollins.
He performed and recorded with Dave Newton, Didier Lockwood and Spike Robinson. In 1991, he was a founding member of Charlie Watts’s quintet, together with Gerard Presencer, Peter King and Brian Lemon. Since 1998, he has led a trio featuring Iain Dixon and Gene Calderazzo, and became a member of The ABC&D of Boogie Woogie, with Ben Waters, Axel Zwingenberger and Charlie Watts, performing at the Lincoln Center with Bob Seeley and Lila Ammons.
Continuing to perform and record, bassist Dave Green has released for albums as a leader and working with Ruby Braff, Tony Coe, Captain John Handy, Ben Webster, Buddy Tate, Peter King, Spike Robinson, Stan Tracey, Ken Peplowski, Acker Bilk, Scott Hamilton, Bob Wilber, Roy Williams, Brian Lemon, John Critchinson, Dave Cliff, Joe Temperley, Lol Coxhill, John Bunch, Dick Morrissey and the Michael Garrick Trio has released twenty-four albums as a sideman.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
#preserving genius
More Posts: bass
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jan Garbarek was born March 4, 1947 in Mysen, Norway and grew up in Oslo, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war and a Norwegian farmer’s daughter. He began his recording career in the late 1960s featured on recordings by jazz composer George Russell. Initially influenced by Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann, by 1973 he left avant-garde jazz, and gained wider recognition working with pianist Keith Jarrett’s European Quartet, recording on six Jarrett albums between 1974 and 1979.
As a composer, he draws from Scandinavian folk melodies and his Ayler influence, as well as being a pioneer of ambient jazz composition, exhibited on his Dis album with guitarist Ralph Towner. Jan has ventured into new-age music, set a collection of Olav H. Hauge poems to music, solo saxophone complemented a full mixed choir and incorporated synthesizers and elements of world music.
Garbarek has recorded more than two-dozen albums as a leader and another 45 to date as a sideman with Karin Krog, Terje Rypdal, George Russell, Art Lande, Ralph Towner, Bill Connors, David Darling, Keith Jarrett, Egberto Gismonti, Charlie Haden, Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, Manu Katché, Eleni Karaindrou, Kim Kashkashian, Marilyn Mazur, Gary Peacock, L. Shankar, Paul Giger, Giya Kancheli, Miroslav Vitous, Eberhard Weber and Kenny Wheeler
His album Officium, a collaboration with early music vocal performers the Hilliard Ensemble, became one of ECM’s biggest-selling albums of all time. Saxophonist Jan Garbarek, who received a Grammy nomination in 2005 for his album In Praise of Dreams, He is also active in classical and world music and continues to perform, record and tour.
Sponsored By
#preserving genius
More Posts: saxophone
The Jazz Voyager
Located at 56 Gold Street, 94133 this Jazz Voyager is catching a flight to San Francisco, California and looking forward to stepping into Bix Restaurant this weekend to experience going back in time to the opulence of prohibition. Jazz was the soundtrack of the 1920s and it’s the soundtrack of Bix. Situated in the Barbary Coast enclave down an alley, Bix welcomes pianists and vocalists Sunday through Thursdays and jazz trios Friday and Saturday night. This supper club has a swanky 1930s ambiance, live jazz & a dining room serving American-French cuisine. Reservations recommended: opentable.com or 415-433-6300.
Sponsored By
Voices From The Community
#preserving genius
More Posts: adventure,club,genius,jazz,music,preserving,restaurant,travel,voyager